Boston Quattro 1264-T01 review

This multi-node server packs a massive rack processing density and at a shade under £10,000, it's a highly cost effective alternative to blade servers.

IT Pro Verdict

Blade servers pale into insignificance when faced with the Quattro’s processing density making it well suited to a wide range of tasks including cloud computing and HPC duties. Even better is the price as the Quattro 1264-T01 is the equal of Dell’s PowerEdge C6220 for build quality and features but beats it soundly on value.

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Remote management

Remote management comes as standard as each node has an embedded RMM chip which presents a dedicated network port at the rear. Accessed via a web browser, it offers a simple interface offering plenty of data gathered from the motherboard sensors,

The readings can be linked up with predefined thresholds and if any are breached, the RMM can issue SNMP traps and email alerts. Power can also be controlled from each node's own web interface so you can turn it off and on or gracefully power it down.

KVM-over-IP remote control is a standard feature and you also get virtual media services included. The latter allows local devices such as optical drives or hard disks on the guest system to be presented to the node as bootable devices.

Overall

The closest competitor to Boston's Quattro 1264-T01 is Dell's PowerEdge C6220 as this 2U rack system also offers four independent server nodes each sporting E5-2600 Xeons. There's nothing between them for build quality and features but the one difference it's impossible to ignore is the Quattro costs around half the price making it a clear winner for value.

ITPRO Value award

Verdict

Blade servers pale into insignificance when faced with the Quattro’s processing density making it well suited to a wide range of tasks including cloud computing and HPC duties. Even better is the price as the Quattro 1264-T01 is the equal of Dell’s PowerEdge C6220 for build quality and features but beats it soundly on value.

Chassis: 2U rack

Power: 2 x 1620W hot plug power supplies

Storage: 24 x SFF SATA hot-swap drive bays

Four hot-swap nodes each with the following:

Motherboard: Supermicro X9DRT-HF

CPU: 2 x 2.2GHz E5-2660 Xeon

Memory: 32GB 1600MHz DDR3 upgradeable to 256GB

Storage: 1 x 500GB Seagate Constellation SFF SATA hard disk (max. 6 per node)

RAID: Intel C602 chipset

Array support: RAID0, 1, 5, 10

Expansion: 1 x 16X PCI-e Gen3

Network: 2 x Gigabit

Management: embedded RMM with 10/100 port

Software: Supermicro SuperO Doctor III and IPMI View 2

Warranty: 3yrs on-site NBD

Dave Mitchell
Dave Mitchell

Dave is an IT consultant and freelance journalist specialising in hands-on reviews of computer networking products covering all market sectors from small businesses to enterprises. Founder of Binary Testing Ltd – the UK’s premier independent network testing laboratory - Dave has over 45 years of experience in the IT industry.

Dave has produced many thousands of in-depth business networking product reviews from his lab which have been reproduced globally. Writing for ITPro and its sister title, PC Pro, he covers all areas of business IT infrastructure, including servers, storage, network security, data protection, cloud, infrastructure and services.

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